More Than Coffee Table Decor: Stand-Out Animal Photography, Art & Poetry Books

We’re not shy about our love of books at We Animals Media.

We believe books, storytelling, art, and beautiful imagery can change people’s minds and challenge preconceptions. 

A carefully-crafted book invites us into the lives of other animals, offering us the opportunity to reconsider and challenge our fractured relationship with other species.

And in an online world, holding a physical copy of a book is a unique experience. If you’re passionate about photography, there is nothing like viewing a photograph in print. 

“A beautifully produced book has a hand-made physicality that the internet can never have.” - Nick Brandt, World-Renowned Photographer.

Nick Brandt: The Day May Break

If you follow photography, you likely know world-renowned photographer Nick Brandt. His massive new body of work, The Day May Break (2021), is the first part of a global series portraying people and animals impacted by environmental destruction. We are utterly mesmerized by the images and their execution.

Ex-Posed by Gordon Meade

Gordon Meade has published another searing, knock-your-socks-off book of poetry. It was inspired by our book, HIDDEN Animals in the Anthropocene and published by our friends at Lantern Publishing & Media .

The poems are about images taken by our founder Jo-Anne McArthur and other photojournalists.

“I’m grateful for having been invited to write the foreword. Gratitude to Gordon and to animal photojournalists. Thank you for exposing yourselves to the suffering of others, and for making images and texts that in turn expose animal sentience to those of us who need to see. All of this work is our desperate cry, our urgent plea.” 

– Jo-Anne McArthur

The Evidence Project

This is a book the world so desperately needs to see.

Created by our friends Keith Wilson FRGS and Britta Jaschinski, this book of photography, “The Evidence Project,” illustrates the interconnectedness and interdependence of all life on earth and calls upon humans to change our ways before it’s too late.

With images from our founder, Jo-Anne McArthur , and our We Animals Media contributors, including Douglas Gimesy Aaron Gekoski & Paul Hilton , this is an unmatched collection of powerful images by leading photographers from many countries across the globe.

“Earth has been conquered. There are eight billion of us alive today and we can live almost anywhere, travel everywhere and consume everything within sight in our pursuit of the good life. But we cannot continue like this. Our endless demands and consumption of fossil fuels, minerals, forests, wildlife, farmed animals, marine life, plants and other life forms have left us exposed to the vagaries of one of Earth’s oldest biological entities – viruses. Too often we forget that all life on Earth is interconnected. We are part of the natural web of life that supports and sustains us.”

FOX Neighbour Villain Icon

Through powerful, sensitive imagery, this book sheds light on the truth about foxes, dispelling myths and exploring how these misconceptions have influenced society’s attitude towards them.

Award-winning photographers Neil Aldridge , Matthew Maran and Andy Parkinson the British Red Fox for over 20 years. Together with a series of informative essays, their photographs shed new light on this enigmatic and misunderstood animal.

From the photographers:

“The red fox deserves greater respect and understanding if we are to have a viable and sustainable future co-existence with the natural world. To achieve this, the fox needs a better-informed story than the tall tales of the past that have shaped the erroneous beliefs of today.”

Vegan Art: A Book of Visual Protest

A collection of sketches, illustrations, paintings, and photography from 21 contemporary art activists on the front line of the vegan art protest movement, brought together by art-ivist illustrator Tommy Kane .

We are thrilled this collection is finally available to the world. And we are proud that We Animals Media images contribute to this provocative, unflinching, and satirical book.

Allowed to Grow Old: Portraits of Elderly Animals from Farm Sanctuaries

Isa Leshko is an American photographer and writer whose first book, ‘Allowed to Grow Old’ was published in April 2019. The book, compiled of images taken over nearly a decade, examines the themes of animal rights, aging, and mortality through portraits of elderly rescued farmed animals who have been given the unlikely chance to grow old. 

“I continued to focus on elderly farmed animals because it is nothing short of a miracle to be in the presence of a farm animal who has managed to reach old age. Most of their kin die before they are six months old. By depicting the beauty and dignity of elderly farm animals, I invite reflection upon what is lost when these animals are not allowed to grow old.”

We Animals (2nd Edition)

Initially published in 2013, We Animals is the book that started it all. 

We’re proud to offer the second edition of We Animals –  sixteen additional pages of photographs and Jo-Anne McArthur ’s engrossing narrative, always telling the stories of those who can’t speak for themselves.

The second edition of We Animals is an invaluable guide for aspiring animal photojournalists.

The Animals Are Leaving Us

You may know Jo-Anne McArthur’s photograph of a pig in a slaughterhouse. She’s on her knees, eyes closed, screaming, as she is bashed on the head by a club. After photographing the brutal scene, Jo sent the image to her friend Martin Rowe , unedited.

“I knew he’d see a lot in it, I knew he would get it: what I was conveying in the image, and what the image says about the long history or our relationship to other animals. As my publisher and editor, Martin knows my work well!

I was right. Martin did have a lot to say about this image. 35 verses of thoughts about our relationship with animals, in fact! I’ve spent so much time with this poem now and it’s one of the most profound things I have ever read.”

HIDDEN: Animals in the Anthropocene

An unflinching book of photography about our conflict with non-human animals around the globe, as depicted through the lenses of forty award-winning photojournalists.

HIDDEN shines a light on the invisible animals in our lives: those we have a close relationship with and yet fail to see. The stories within its pages are proof of the emergency confronting animals globally, from industrial farming to climate change, and demonstrate the connection between animal suffering and human health. HIDDEN: Animals in the Anthropocene is a historical document, a memorial and an indictment of what is and should never again be.

HIDDEN becomes a cherished artifact for those who love photography, animals, or thought-provoking and historic books. It is the seminal book on animal photojournalism, and it is moving.

First-place and gold winner in Pictures of the Year International, Independent Publisher and Prix de la Photographie Paris.